Table of Contents
From the past to the present, crony capitalists and the privileged class have managed to get away with unethically profiting from a rigged layer of the economy by shrouding their practices in complexity. Their jargon and rhetoric lulls many of us, the citizenry, to sleep. We fail to recognize the serious damage this rigged layer has, and continues to, cause. Much like how we dismiss corporate crimes that involve millions in theft and harm the whole nation but heavily focus on street crimes.
Crony capitalists, ever since the 1970s, have potentially ripped us off of trillions of dollars. From worker wages to Wall Street, pharmaceuticals to the oil industry, we are likely the victims of rigged economy theft in most aspects and sectors of our economy. Yet we shut off, blindly trust and leave matters to the experts who just might be the people ripping us off.
Don’t believe us? Read on.
The Rigged Economy in History
- 9th-15th centuries: Feudalism (kings & queens) stratified society, endowing the royal few with disproportionate power. Commoners, given little choice, had to accept their position in society and lack of upwards mobility, internalizing their ‘inferiority’ as part of their nature. It took Jean Jacque Rousseau’s work on the Social Contract (and General Will) to wake up the commoners to the fact that all humans should be treated equally.
- 18th century: Before ‘the father of economists’ Adam Smith grew to prominence in the 18th century, workers were locked into “apprenticeships” until their employer, ‘the master’ of that profession, allowed them to compete. The master’s authority, in effect, stifled market competition and got him cheap labor. He could prevent his apprentice from creating their own business for 8 to 12 years. Moreover, many apprentices were driven out of the profession before they even received their master’s ‘blessing.’ Adam Smith’s magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, dismantled this master-apprentice relationship, resulting in the end of a layer of the rigged economy.
- 19th century: Throughout American slavery and the Jim Crow era, the aristocracy implemented a devious scheme to keep the working class down. If there was a group (in this case, Black people) that had it even worse than the working class, then the latter would think their situation wasn’t so terrible. Black people unequivocally suffered the most, but the working class, as much as they perpetuated and often promoted racism, were unknowingly manipulated by the privileged class.
- 20th century: During the industrial revolution, wealthy business owners cited ‘traditional family roles’ as justification for paying women a fraction of men’s salaries (40-60%). This systemized sexism allowed the rich to generate major profits on the backs of women they paid poorly. It wasn’t until the hard-fought success of the suffrage movement (1919) that women managed to receive rights they deserved from the beginning, including equal pay.
In every case, crony capitalists and the privileged class duped the working class into accepting the rigged economy. This crime, while undoubtedly grave, elicited only grumblings and occasional complaints. The working class was conditioned by those in power to downplay the rigged economy as a ‘small annoyance,’ a simple ‘fact’ of the world. Evidently, they needed a jolt, a booming wakeup call, to truly see that they were victims of theft.
Credit Default Swaps (CDSs) and the 2008 Mortgage Crisis: A Modern Example of the Rigged Economy
CDSs allowed the rich and powerful to steal a trillion dollars during the 2008 mortgage crisis. Just looking at the term, “Credit Default Swaps” sounds like complicated Wall Street jargon, with which most of us are unfamiliar. We glossed over, and sometimes even ignored, CDSs when we heard about it, thinking it wasn’t worth the time and effort to understand it. Wall Street’s lingo lulled many of us to sleep, essentially.
Here’s the secret, though. CDSs aren’t complicated to grasp; they’re really just ‘insurance.’ When investors bought back home mortgages, they also made sure to get CDSs for their deals. The insurance guaranteed any financial loss they incurred would be paid back by the insurance company. As it pertains to the 2008 mortgage crisis, investors could see a financial crisis on the horizon and bought as many high-risk mortgages as they could. The problem is: investors specifically made those high-risk investments that were bound to fail due to the impending crash in order to get the payouts from their CDSs. They contributed to taking our financial system to near ruin, and then profited without any repercussions. We got ripped off when the government used taxpayer money, as well as money printing, to bailout these bad actors.
When explained in simple terms, Credit Default Swaps prove to be much easier to comprehend than we would first think. The wealthy and powerful utilize jargon, to mention only one tactic, to make their crooked dealings seem above board and esoteric. “It’s too complicated for you, but not for us” is what they’re peddling. They knew they were rigging the system to the brink of ruin, but they just used jargon to deter you from questioning or challenging their authority..
CDSs are just one way bad actors ripped us off of trillions, and we failed to hold them accountable.
How the Zero Theft Movement will Wake Up the Public
Our books serve as that wakeup call for you, the citizens/workers of today. The Zero Theft Movement will go into the ‘red pill’ vs ‘blue pill’ that explains, philosophically, why workers undersell the theft via the rigged economy and its destructive effects on their quality of life.
Jean Jacque Rousseau, with his vision of democracy, wrote ‘political pamphlets’ to eliminate Feudalism. In order for his ideas to truly effect mass societal change, he treated his writings as a scholar or philosopher should: with logic and academic rigor. His work, The Social Contract, got published in 1762. Notice how 14 years after the book had been published (1776), the American Revolution occurred. The French Revolution followed 13 years after that (1789). To illustrate how successful Rousseau was in his endeavor, you can find his ‘General Will’ concept in the opening paragraph of France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Inspired by Rousseau and his methods, the Zero Theft movement will propel all of us, the everyday citizens, to strip away the rigged layer of the economy from which the privileged class steals. We will utilize our knowledge, our reports, to establish a fully healthy, ethical economy.
Fight Against the Rigged Economy NOW
For 50 years, crony capitalists have ripped off the public via the rigged layer of the economy, and for 50 years we have not been able to stop it. That’s because we have not had strong, consolidated proof that rigged economy theft occurs.
Your fellow citizens have spoken. See an accurate estimate of the total amount crony capitalists have ripped off.
The Zero Theft Movement gives you the power to eliminate the rigged layer of the economy through our advanced technological platform. All of your investigations and votes go straight on the blockchain through Ethereum smart contracts, creating a permanent and completely public record. The public’s voice cannot be suppressed by those who have managed to buy their immunity. No one can derail what we have started.
You turn the rigged economy into a quasi-criminal investigation. Dive deep into cases where crony capitalists might have ripped us off, in the economic areas that interest you. The Zero Theft platform enables you to uncover the bad actors and propose an amount stolen in your report/financial audits.
In under twenty minutes, you can be a hero by reviewing and voting on (out of five stars) on a proposal, allowing the best ones to emerge across all economic sectors. The more people who join the movement, the more legitimate and powerful these investigations become.
After viewing our top proposals and the amount stolen by rigged economy theft, citizens will not be able to accept the status quo. We will wake them up to the fact that we need an updated social contract—new laws—that bars crony capitalists and corrupt officials from ripping us off. Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, the rigged layer of the economy has no place in our country.
Spread the word and continue learning about the harmful effects of the rigged economy through our free educational articles and book series.
We will awaken 330 million American citizens. $2 trillion could be stolen per year via the rigged layer of the economy. That could be as high as 10% of our GDP. Let’s work together to establish an ethical economy where there’s zero theft.
Alignment Checks on Articles
This is to make sure that the articles don’t go against our stance on the issues. PrivC: Corporations or the Wealthy. PrivC = Privileged Classes| # | SW | AR | BR | Ri | Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ✓ | The Antagonist (villain) is Theft by Crony Capitalism. That includes: | |||
| 2 | ✓ | a) PrivC breaking market rates | |||
| 3 | ✓ | b) PrivC making market rates HIGHER on prices on Products or Services by breaking free markets (laws or other unethical behavior) | |||
| 4 | ✓ | c) PrivC making market rates LOWER on WAGES on workers by breaking free markets (laws or other unethical behavior) | |||
| 5 | ✓ | d) PrivC making market rates HIGHER on prices on Products or Services by abnormally reducing competition (laws or other unethical behavior) | |||
| 6 | No | ✓ | We don’t make Free market or ethical based capitalism in any way a villian | ||
| 7 | Ok | ✓ | Don’t make negative statements about the political RIGHT. (Unless the SEO search term is only people on the left. And it is very narrowed about bad behavior that only the right does that MUST be part of the SEO search term. | ||
| 8 | Ok | ✓ | Don’t make negative statements about the political LEFT. (Unless the SEO search term is only people on the left. And it is very narrowed about bad behavior that only the right does that MUST be part of the SEO search term | ||
| 9 | Ok | ✓ | We don’t say that economics MUST have redistribution or beyond free markets. That is left outside of us in the “Partisan Layer” outside of us. | ||
| 10 | Ok | ✓ | Don’t cover Partisan issues. Unless they are very necessary a rigged economy issue. | ||
| 11 | No | X | Don’t use Stealing/THeft unless it is at the start of the article and with the disclaimer. Use “Ripped off” instead elsewhere. | ||
| 12 | No | ✓ | Make sure title doesn’t cause any slander issues | ||
| 13 | n/a | If an issue makes people worry if Capitalism work, we then show it working with charts of GDP growth makes salary workers salaries increase proportionally before 1970. But then after 1970 is breaks, which shows a stealing economy being added above that. | |||
| 14 | Ok | n/a | Don’t paint “Trump” as the bad guy. It will drive away the Political Right. Often is there are far older examples, then use those. Or bipartisian examples. | ||
| 15 | Ok | n/a | If we talk about PRICE FIXING and SPECIFIC COMPANIES, then we are at very high risk. Make sure we say, “See the rigged economy report” to see which companies can be benefiting by PRICE FIXING. | ||
| 16 | n/a | When we talk about areas where prices go UP (like Pharma) we should show that in Ethical Economics, prices go DOWN over time when the produces are no longer cutting edge and brand new. Going UP very often shows a rigged economy. Like old medicines (Penicillin) prices going up. | |||
| 17 | ✓ | We don’t want to make a NEGATIVE to a group/forum/partisian side. We want to say HOW they can STEP UP to be HEROS by fixing a BIG PROBLEM, if they CHOSE TO. Make it sound easy. But they need to decide to take action. They can be excited to become heroes. We can refer to their community in specific. We indirectly are saying that they haven’t been effective at solving that problem in the past. We can show how easy it is it to solve the problem in the future. | |||
| 18 | n/a | Make sure our SEO articles BRIDGE into what we are doing | |||
Defamation Prevention Rules
PrivC: Corporations or the Wealthy. PrivC = Privileged Classes| # | SW | AR | BR | Ri | Factor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Titles can’t have a problem. Their internals can’t reverse that. No Company name here. | ||||
| 2 | “Ripped off” is okay when “Stealing” or “theft” isn’t. | ||||
| 3 | The big problem is if we are talking about a problem with a SPECIFIC company or person | ||||
| 4 | The problem is if we are making a FACTUAL statement that they cna challenge didn’t happen. Amount stolen. A quote that was said. | ||||
| 5 | Worry if we author the content. Make sure we aren’t saying something. We need any statements of facts to come from other people:
| ||||
| 6 | Say “Voters approximated was stolen” instead “The exact amount the company stole was $3333” | ||||
| 7 | Our SEO articles are at risk. Triple check them | ||||
| 8 | We don’t want to make a BAD claim about a PERSON or a COMPANY | ||||
| 9 | The Economist magazine said: “AIG did XXX with their CDSs” SOURCE: “What did AIG do with credit default swaps”, The Economist Magazine Make sure the source is right next to the quote. Title of article is the SOURCE. Make that title a link to the real article. | ||||
| 10 | In the rare cases we use “Stealing” or “theft” it needs to not be in titles. | ||||
| 11 | In the rare cases we use “Stealing” or “theft” it MUST have the definition of our special definition of that very close by. Lower in the article we shift to “ripped off” | ||||
| 12 | Be careful of saying XYZ company did action ABC, and ABC caused theft. Be careful of us saying “They DID do action ABC” by itself. We want to say that “Anyone doing the action ABC needs to WORRY it caused a collapse later. See the Summary of Rigged Theft report see if this company XYZ had a problem here (by citizen investigation and citizen voting) | ||||
Standard Disclaimer
The Zero Theft Movement does not have any interest in partisan politics/competition or attacking/defending one side. We seek to eradicate theft from the U.S economy. In other words, how the wealthy and powerful rig the system to steal money from us, the everyday citizen. We need to collectively fight against crony capitalism in order for us to all profit from an ethical economy.
Terms like ‘steal,’ ‘theft,’ and ‘crime’ will frequently appear throughout the article. Zero Theft will NOT adhere strictly to the legal definitions of these terms (since congress sells out). We have broadly and openly defined terms like ‘steal’ and ‘theft’ to refer to the rigged economy and other debated unethical acts that can cause citizens to lose out on money they deserve to keep.